Lukashenka claims that Yanukovych financed Right Sector

Viktor Yanukovych and his inner circle financed Right Sector, Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed Friday in Minsk, speaking to a large group of Russian journalists on a tour of Belarus.

“Viktor Fyodorovych [Yanukovych] and his cronies financed Right Sector because they believed it would be a force against Yulia [Tymoshenko],” the Belarusian leader said. “They lost all sense of reality. As a result, he created that force, which eventually destroyed him. This is what happened in Ukraine. I was a spectator of the whole affair. I warned Viktor Fyodorovych that he should not do that, and that this would happen.”

The corruption system that was created in Ukraine under Mr. Yanukovych’s rule could not be tolerated, the Belarusian leader said.

The Ukrainian president lost control of the country, he added, noting that he warned the leadership of Russia about the developments in Ukraine. “When they [Russia] provided a loan to Ukraine [in the fall of 2013], I told them that they should certainly help Ukraine and should not keep the gas price that high,” he said. “Even at that time, when Yanukovych was in power, authorities [in Ukraine] used it [the high gas price] for creating strong anti-Russian sentiments in the country. Most people hated the Russians and their president for the high gas price. There were such sentiments even in the east [of Ukraine].”

Mr. Lukashenka pointed out that Russian journalists should not believe that all people living in western Ukraine are “Nazis” and all people living in eastern Ukraine are good guys. “There are good people everywhere, but there is a black sheep in every family,” he said. “There are people who do not care which side to fight with if they are paid money.”

There are both Belarusians and Russians fighting with Ukraine’s forces in eastern Ukraine and Belarusians and Russians fighting with the rebels, he added.

Right Sector (Pravyy Sektor), a Ukrainian nationalist organization that came into existence in late 2013 as a paramilitary confederation at the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv, where its street fighters led counterattacks against riot police. The organization became a political party in March 2014.